"Oh, will he!" Montrose glanced at his watch. "It is twenty-five to eight now. I will go at once, and shall arrive at Don Pablo's cottage shortly after the hour he mentions. Then----" "Well, what then?" demanded the Squire grimly. "I'll force the lie down his throat," raged Montrose, who was quite beside himself with anger, and, unable to speak further, he left the room hurriedly. "Is he or Narvaez the liar?" Enistor asked himself, but could find no reply. CHAPTER XIX THE MORNING AFTER After breakfast disastrous news came from two quarters, and concerned both Don Pablo and Julian Hardwick. While the Squire, his daughter and his guest were ending their meal, the housekeeper rushed into the room with an agitated face to announce evil. Like all her class she was delighted to be the bearer of bad tidings, and counted upon making a sensation, which she assuredly did. Enistor had scarcely raised his eyebrows at her unceremonious entry when she burst into voluble speech. "Oh! sir: oh! miss, here's dreadful goings on. That poor young gentleman who painted pictures is dead and gone." "I thought he would die," said Alice, with a sob. "He had no strength when I left him last night. Oh! poor Julian: poor Julian." "But that ain't the worst, miss. Señor Narvaez is murdered!" Enistor started to his feet and overturned his chair. He could not believe his ears. "Murdered! Don Pablo! Be careful what you say." "I am careful, sir," cried the housekeeper resentfully. "He's as dead as a doornail, lying outside his cottage with a broken neck. Mrs. Boyce as looked after him came on the corpse this morning, and is now in the kitchen crying dreadful and exhausted, as she well may be, having rushed across the moor at her age to tell of the wicked crime." "But is it a crime?" asked Alice, deadly pale and anxious. "For sure, miss. Men don't break their own necks." "Who killed him?" demanded Montrose sharply. "No one knows, miss--I mean, sir. Mrs. Boyce said as Señor Narvaez had some one to see him last night, but who he was she don't rightly know." Enistor's eyes rested on Montrose, who started and flushed. "When did Mrs. Boyce discover the body?" "When she got up early to make the old gentleman's breakfast," said the voluble housekeeper. "He wasn't in his room, as usual, but she thought he might have gone out for a stroll, as he sometimes did. Then later, as he did not return, Mrs. Boyce went out to look and found him dead just outside the gate, looking as quiet as pussy. And please, sir, she wants to know what she's to do, having come as quick as ever she could to tell, so that it mayn't be thought to be her fault, which it ain't, she being one as wouldn't kill a fly." "Tell Mrs. Boyce that I shall go over to the cottage and see what is to be done," said Enistor quickly, "and send one of the men down to the village for the policeman. We must communicate with the Perchton Inspector." "And what about Mr. Hardwick as is dead and----"